I’ve noted before, based on instinct that, when it comes to substance, nothing distinguishes Obama and Clinton from each other, in that they’re each extremely liberal. That, I said, is why they’ve had to fall back so frantically on their racial and sexual identities. It’s not just the “identity politics” chickens coming home to roost; it’s also the only way you can tell the two apart. My instinct regarding this matter is right on the money: according to the National Journal’s nonpartisan rating of Congress people, both are to the far left politically. In addition, “‘The policy differences between Clinton and Obama are so slight they are almost nonexistent to the average voter,’ said Richard Lau, a Rutgers University political scientist.”

Also according to the National Journal, McCain has a lifetime rating as a conservative, although he’s grown less conservative with the passage of time. He is something of a centrist which means, ironically, that if he’s elected, he could be the uniter, which is the mantle Obama currently claims for himself. That is, Obama speaks unity, but operates at the fringe. McCain really does seem to function out of the center.

Hat tip: Captain’s Quarters

Sphere: Related Content

| Trackback URL | Comments (No Comments)

First, the NY Times announced that American troops were crazed killers. Next, it announced that they were crazed homeless people. The latest salvo the media has launched at the troops to counteract the Surge’s success is that they’re so crazy they are killing themselves in droves:

As many as 121 Army soldiers committed suicide in 2007, a jump of some 20 percent over the year before, officials said Thursday.

The rise comes despite numerous efforts to improve the mental health of a force stressed by a longer-than-expected war in Iraq and the most deadly year yet in the now six-year-old conflict in Afghanistan.

Internal briefing papers prepared by the Army’s psychiatry consultant early this month show there were 89 confirmed suicides last year and 32 deaths that are suspected suicides and still under investigation.

More than a quarter of those — about 34 — happened during deployments in Iraq, an increase from 27 in Iraq the previous year, according to the preliminary figures.

The report also shows an increase in the number of attempted suicides and self-injuries — some 2,100 in 2007 compared to less than 1,500 the previous year and less than 500 in 2002.

The total of 121 suicides last year, if all are confirmed, would be more than double the 52 reported in 2001, before the Sept. 11 attacks prompted the Bush administration to launch its counter-terror war. The toll was 87 by 2005 and 102 in 2006.

I’m not quarreling with the numbers for last year, which equal 121 individual tragedies. Nor do I challenge the fact that the number of suicides has been rising. However, I do have a problem with the absence of context. The story makes it appear as if there’s an ever escalating suicide epidemic in the military that sets it apart from the general American population. That is, the article forgot to compare these numbers to society at large. Significantly, it also doesn’t distinguish between active duty, guard and reserve (502,790, 346,288 and 189,975, all of which add up to 1,039,053). As always context makes things interesting.
Here are some statistics regarding suicide in America as of 2004:

* There were 11.05 suicides per every 100,000 people.
* Men commit 78.8% of all suicides.
* 12.9% of all deaths in the 15-24 year old demographic come from suicide. Another source puts this demographic at about 12.5 suicides per every 100,000 people. (People over 65 have the highest rate, at 14.3 people out of every 100,000). Adolescents between 15 and 19 come in third highest, at 8.2 suicides per every 100,000.
* Non-Hispanic Whites and Native Americans are more than twice as likely to commit suicide as other minorities. (Approx. 12 out of every 100,000 versus approx. 5-6 out of every 100,000)

Now lets look at Army demographics for the year 2006 (the last I could find):

* Total number of troops, active, guard and reserve: 1,039,053
* Total number of active and guard troops (not counting reserve): 849,078
* Total active duty was 502,790
* Men make up 86% of active duty soldiers (430,000).
* Whites made up 61.6 percent of active duty soldiers, or almost 310,000 troops.

I’m not able to find the average age for the Army (I don’t know why), but I’m willing to bet it hovers between 19-24, with the weight at about 20.

Okay, bear with me here, and correct me when I go wildly wrong, but I think one can make a few predictions about what the suicide rate probably would be in the military if it hewed to general American statistics. First of all, if there are an average of 11.05 suicides for every 100,000 people, out of the total army strength of 1,039,053, one would expect a little more than 110 suicides, which is remarkably close to the 121 committed last year. And given that the Army is disproportionately male and that the rate of suicides is disproportionately high amongst men, one would have to expect that the average of 11.05 suicides would have to skew upwards to account for both of these disproportionalities. You then have to add in the fact that the average male soldiers age also places him in one of the high risk suicide categories (youths 15-24). After doing all that, you’d have to slide the rate down a little to reflect the fact that some of these men are minorities, who have lower suicides rates, but that kind of math is utterly beyond me. Any of you who can do math should feel free to chime in here and tell me by how much the suicide rate increases when you have a mostly white, young, male demographic in the military, and mostly white, young, male suicides in the general population. Complicated math or not, my rule of thumb tells me that, compared to the general population, the rate of Army suicides is not out of the ordinary.

Even if one ratchets the numbers down from all troops and looks only at active duty and guard troops, the result isn’t that different. The total number of active and guard troops, as I noted above, is 849,078. That means that you could expect an average of 94 suicides per year. And then again, you’d have to do the higher math of factoring in all those young, white men and then factoring down slightly for minorities (who are 38.4$ of active duty troops and 25.5% of guard troops).

Things do get more tragic if one really rachets the numbers down to focus only on active duty suicides, because that would mean a base suicide rate that’s twice the national average. Even adjusting that for the young, white male military population probably wouldn’t offset the differential. I can’t find the report on which this news story is based, though, so I really don’t know which Army population is at issue.

In any event, as you think about all of this, consider that the report says that there are only 89 confirmed suicides, with 32 still being investigated. It’s certain that some of those being investigated will prove also to be suicides, but it’s anything but certain that all will.

Bottom line: It’s all very complicated for a math-phobe like me but, unless one is sure that the numbers in the article apply only to active duty troops, I’m fairly confident that the numbers, while showing 121 personal tragedies, do not prove that our American troops are killing themselves like flies. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.) In other words, while the news report, to the extent it gives numbers directly from military sources, is informative, to the extent the report makes it appear that troops are dying in droves as compared to other Americans, it’s misleading.

[Discuss this article with Bookworm over at Bookworm Room...]

Sphere: Related Content

| Trackback URL | Comments (No Comments)

This is from the CNN website:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, winner of the Iowa caucuses, hoped to position himself well among evangelicals and other conservatives to turn around several consecutive losses since Iowa. Long-shot candidate Ron Paul, a representative from Texas, also participated in the debate.

Is it fair to say that Ron Paul, of Mike Huckabee for that matter, actually participated in the debate? Almost all of the questions were directed to Romney and McCain while Huckabee and Paul sat on the sidelines waiting to be asked a question or invited to respond to a McCain or Romney answer.

It was obvious to me from the start that CNN was determined to form the debate around Romney and McCain and provide America with who they believe to be the top choices rather than allowing the viewers to see all the candidates to take a decision. At one point Huckabee informed the moderators that he was part of the process as well and the barrage of questions they promised turned out to be one. Ron Paul stated he wanted to elaborate on something he was not permitted to discuss earlier and Anderson Cooper cut him off and promised him that in a few minutes he [Paul] would get a chance. More than five minutes passed as Romney and McCain were asked question after question while Paul was ignored.

It is also fair to say that Huckabee and Paul (even more so Paul) were kept on short leashes and not given anywhere near the time the other two received to address issues and attack each other. When Huckabee answered he was more thoughtful and expressed cogent thoughts without attacking anyone and Paul actually seemed like the adult on the stage. At one point McCain and Romney spent nearly ten minutes arguing about who said what regarding timetables. When Paul finally got to speak he said that they should be addressing the issues rather than arguing about petty stuff like who said what and when:

I don’t even think they should have gone [to Iraq], so keeping them for 100 years, where’s the money going to come from? (APPLAUSE)

You know, the country is in bankruptcy. And when I listen to this argument, I mean, I find it rather silly, because they’re arguing technicalities of a policy they both agree with.

They agreed with going in; they agreed for staying, agreed for staying how many years? And these are technicalities. We should be debating foreign policy, whether we should have interventionism or non-interventionism, whether we should be defending this country or whether we should be the policemen of the world, whether we should be running our empire or not, and how are going to have guns and butter?

You know, the ’70s were horrible because we paid for the guns and butters of the ’60s. Now we’re doing the same thing. And nobody even seems to care. The dollar is crashing, and you’re talking about these technicalities about who said what when?

I mean, in 1952, we Republicans were elected to stop the war in Korea. In 1968, we were elected to stop the war in Vietnam. And, tragically, we didn’t stop it very fast: 30,000 more men died.

So when I talk about these long-term stays, I think, “How many men are you willing to let die for this, for something that has nothing to do with our national security?”

There were no Al Qaida there. It had nothing do with 9/11. And there was no threat to our national security. They never committed aggression. It’s unconstitutional. It’s an undeclared war.

And we have these silly arguments going on about who said what when. I think it’s time to debate foreign policy and why we don’t follow the Constitution and only go to war with a declaration of war. CNN

I have to agree with Paul on this one (with regard to the debate). These guys spent a lot of time arguing about who said what on an issue they both agree with. No matter what one says about Paul, he makes sense on some of the issues and he is right that the issues matter more than who said what and when especially when they both agree with the policy.

Huckabee and Paul were ignored through a large portion of this debate. It almost seems that they received as much attention on stage as they would have if they had been in the audience. Governor Schwarzenegger got more face time than they did and he was sitting in the crowd.

[Discuss this article with the Big Dog...]

Sphere: Related Content

| Trackback URL | Comments (No Comments)

Via Kathryn Jean Lopez, via Neo-Neocon, an item that begs to be parodied, but cannot be…since parody demands an assessment of the level of absurdity in the real thing, followed by a nudging-up by a couple notches. Said notches being simply unavailable.

This comes from NOW’s N.Y. chapter and just has to be quoted in full:

“Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.

“And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not “this” one). ‘They’ are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). They are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women’s money, say they’ll do feminist and women’s rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America’s future or whatever.

“This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation - to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who ‘know what’s best for us.’”

Whining and complaining their way to global domination. Discriminating and hating their way to a discrimination-and-hate-free utopia. Championing choice, and refusing to let anyone anywhere decide anything any differently.

You do know what the etymology is behind the word “utopia,” don’t you? This is why we need NOW. They show us the reason why.

[Discuss this article with MKFreeberg over at House of Eratosthenes...]

Sphere: Related Content

| Trackback URL | Comments (No Comments)

Final Thoughts: There was a back and forth in this debate where John McCain once again tried to smear Mitt Romney by blatantly mis-characterizing Romney’s stance on Iraq. I wrote about that smear earlier at this link here and others are talking about it once again today now that John McCain looked so petty and un-presidential as he failed when confronted by Romney face to face.

In fact John McCain pretty much said the exact same thing that Mitt Romney said one week after Romney made the statement that McCain is waving around completely out of context.

Asked what penalty would be imposed if Iraq failed to meet his benchmarks, [McCain] said: “I think everybody knows the consequences. Haven’t met the benchmarks? Obviously, then, we’re not able to complete the mission. Then you have to examine your options.” - John McCain, January 26, 2007

This statement prompted Barack Obama to say “I called for that . . . several weeks ago. I’m glad that John McCain agrees with me.”

So not only is John McCain essentially lying about what Mitt Romney said McCain made statements that were actually endorsed by Barack Obama. I wish to God that the Romney campaign would wake the hell up and dish that into John McCain’s mug the next time he brings this false charge up.

At the end of the back and forth the viewer was left to see two different people up there. Mitt Romney who defended himself against a blatant smear and John McCain who simply continued to try and fool the American people into voting for him based on a false charge. I don’t think the conservative base is oblivious to this fact. A man that has to mis-characterize his opponent is the kind of person this nation can do without as President. We’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime.

---

Update: The Question: Would, and if so, why — why would Ronald Reagan endorse you? Would Ronald Reagan endorse you? And if so, why?

Best Answer:

HUCKABEE: I think it would be incredibly presumptuous and even arrogant for me to try to suggest what Ronald Reagan would do, that he would endorse any of us against the others.

Let me just say this, I’m not going to pretend he would endorse me. I wish he would. I would love that, but I endorse him, and I’m going to tell you why.

It wasn’t just his specific policies, but Ronald Reagan was something more than just a policy wonk. He was a man who loved this country, and he inspired this country to believe in itself again.

What made Ronald Reagan a great president was not just the intricacies of his policies, though they were good policies. It was that he loved America and saw it as a good nation and a great nation because of the greatness of its people.

And if we can recapture that, that’s when we recapture the Reagan spirit. It’s that spirit that has a can-do attitude about America’s futures and that makes us love our country whether we’re Democrats or Republicans. And that’s what I believe Ronald Reagan did — he brought this country back together and made us believe in ourselves.

And whether he believes in us, I hope we still believe in those things which made him a great leader and a great American.

I can see why Huckabee gets a good response. He’s sharp and quick when responding. This was a great answer.

Debate Transcript: Click Here.

---

Update:John McCain launched a broadside on Mitt Romney by commending him as a fine man who managed companies BUT, “he bought and he sold and sometimes people lost their jobs“. This is the exact kind of statement I would expect from John Edwards, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

COOPER: I’m going to ask you all for follow-ups on this, but, Senator McCain, I just want to give you an opportunity to follow up on that. Is Governor Romney ready to be a military commander?

MCCAIN: Oh, I’m sure that, as I say, he’s a fine man. And I think he managed companies, and he bought, and he sold, and sometimes people lost their jobs. That’s the nature of that business.

Nice Democrat response. Rather than recognizing that Mitt Romney used his business experience to help create jobs or that he came in and saved the Olympics John McCain used the standard line of Democrats who view capitalism with disdain. This is the John McCain I know. In fact John McCain ran away from the question when asked how he is qualified to manage the economy.

Ron Paul actually got one right here. He said that Presidents don’t manage the economy, the people are supposed to run it. Lower taxes, less regulations and not print money out of thin air.

PAUL: OK. The Constitution is very clear that the president is commander in chief of the military, but the president is not the commander in chief of the economy or of the people. And when we get reflection of conventional wisdom, but of a lot of lack of understanding of how the economy works.

The president is not supposed to manage and run the economy. The people are supposed to do this. The government is supposed to give them sound money, low taxes, less regulation. The people are supposed to run it.

But here, we’re assuming that the president is supposed to run the economy. We’re not supposed to manage. We’re not supposed to manage the people’s…

He gets it correct then goes right off the edge with his empire talk.

---

Where to start? I turned on the CNN Reagan Library Debate a few minutes late just in time to see Anderson Cooper try an pin down Mitt Romney with a leading “Is America Better off Now Than Eight Years Ago Regarding the Economy“. Romney answered the question in terms of what he did for the people of Massachusetts, which is something you’d expect a guy to say when he is running on his record as opposed to that of the last couple of Congress’s or the Bush administration. But that wasn’t good enough for Cooper; he was hoping to set a somber mood as the stage for Republicans to hang themselves on.

“Cooper: Let me just interrupt though. The question was are Americans better off than they were eight years ago? And as you know, there are a lot of Americans out there right now who are very interested in the answer, they’re not feeling particularly good about their home sales, the, the value of their homes coming down or the unemployment rate rising. How do you feel how America’s doing?”

To which Romney replied “I’m pleased to talk about what I did as Governor and I’m happy to talk about that record“. At which point Cooper cut him off, “Are you running for governor or are you running for President?”

Thankfully Romney pushed it back in Coopers face, “But I’m not running on President Bush’s record. President Bush can talk about his record. Washington is badly broken right now.”

This is the sort of thing that proves my point about these mainstream media darlings, their lack of professionalism and the utter void between their ears. Americans want to know what Romney will do to reignite the economy. If I had to guess whether or not American’s are better off than they were 8 years ago I’d say it is a mixed bag. More Americans own houses and more Americans are in foreclosure. Cooper and all the morons up there talk about the current unemployment rate as if it is at some unbelievable extraordinary level. The reality is that the United States unemployment rate is in a state considered full employment. In fact the average unemployment rate during the Bush years is less than the average during the Clinton years. So if Cooper wants to wax philosophic and yearn for the good ol’ Clinton days he should consider the actual numbers.

Even John McCain beat back the lefty moderator as Cooper stammered, “it sounds like they are not better off” where McCain replied “I think they are better off overall if you look at the entire picture“. This is a correct response.

Huckabee of course went the other way in a calculated manner, “I don’t think we are (better off).” Thankfully he blamed a Congress that sat on their hands and not President Bush.

The moderators also stated to Ron Paul that 61% of the Americans polled by some unnamed organization stated that the economy “is in a recession already”. A prefect question for a pessimistic obgyn that talks about Republicans as if he isn’t one himself. Oh wait, he isn’t. Ok, so we have established that CNN or some other polling organization is proving that 67% of the Americans have no clue what a recession is. The prospects for a recession loom but a recession doesn’t occur unless there are two or more consecutive declines in GDP.

Anderson Cooper and all the other libs up on that stage probably haven’t heard of the 2001 recession that President Bush inherited or how his tax cuts helped stimulate the economy despite the Clinton recession or 9/11. Which proves once again that the mainstream media is the last group of people that should be informing the American public. That is unless you want to dumb America down.

Cooper, supposedly not an idiot, plays a fools game in front of a conservative audience.

See also: Michelle Malkin, Hot Air

Mitt Romney, John McCain, Huckabee, President Bush, Ron Paul, Anderson Cooper    Sphere: Related Content

| Trackback URL | Comments (No Comments)

Compared to Romney, I don’t like McCain. Compared to Obama or Hillary, I adore McCain and would happily vote for him — heck, if I were voting in Chicago (home turf for both Obama and Hillary), I’d vote for him twice, and have my ancestors vote for him too. You dance with them whut brung ya’, and it looks as if McCain may be the Republican dance partner in the 2008 Presidential election.

So, if you’re one of those conservatives who who thinks McCain is too liberal (and, compared to your candidate of choice, whoever he is, I’m sure you’re right), or who worries about the Gang of 14 (although reading this may allay some of your concerns), or who hasn’t forgiven him for McCain-Feingold, or who just plain doesn’t like him — get over it! He may not be the perfect Republican candidate, but he’s so much better than either Hillary or Obama that it really doesn’t matter. If you believe in conservative principles and fear the fall-out from Democratic policies, you have what amounts to a moral obligation to get out there in November and vote for him. Do not, I repeat, do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Also, if it makes you feel better about casting your vote, there are some indications that he is truly a winning candidate. That is, you won’t be compromising your principles with a vote that is ultimately wasted. A Rasmussen poll that the Captain discusses has him beating out both Obama and Hillary if an election were held today. Now, that may change when one of the Dems emerges victorious from the primary process, in which case more voters may coalesce around the winner, but it’s still good news for those who feel that it’s as important for a Democrat to lose as for a Republican to win.

And if you think I’m being exceptionally vindictive in devoutly wishing for a Democratic loss, here’s my defense: While I think we as a nation are a robust enough to fix any economic messes the Democrats may cause, I also think that we have a one shot deal to remain ascendant when it comes to the World War that the Islamists are waging against us. If we have a Democrat in the White House, especially Obama who can’t get out of Iraq fast enough, we’ll have wasted that shot.

(I have to admit I’m not pleased with Michelle Malkin for hinting that she’d rather see Hillary win than help out McCain. Hmmm….)

[Discuss this article with Bookworm over at Bookworm Room...]

Sphere: Related Content

| Trackback URL | Comments (No Comments)

I don’t think it’s very useful, but this new website — Select 2008 — is a rather fun way to while away time, examine political issues and see from issue to issue where your candidates stand. Actually, that’s unfair of me. It may be useful to people who aren’t up on the issues and the candidates the way I, a political junkie, am. As for me, it simply confirmed that, in my dotage, I’m a conservative, and that McCain will function as my political candidate, although he’s definitely not my top choice. That is, it reminded me that if McCain does win the primaries, I can vote for him with a good conscience especially since, with an even better conscience, I do not want to see any of the Democratic candidates win.

[Discuss this post with Bookworm over at Bookworm Room...]

Sphere: Related Content

| Trackback URL | Comments (No Comments)

John Edwards is out of the race.

Last week I categorized all the candidates running as rock stars, wafflers and true believers. That is our new political divide, I argued, because the candidates weren’t running on platforms anymore — instead, they were selling us things, and the disagreement that separated them had to do with what there was to be sold.

Rock stars sell their names and their personalities. Let’s face it…none of Obama’s supporters can tell you his position on any more than a couple of issues. They don’t care. That isn’t what they bought. Ron Paul disagrees with his own supporters, on a great many issues. Issues aren’t important here. And Hillary…hell’s bells, nobody gives a crap about anything she says she’s going to do.

The wafflers sell their timing. They say the right things to the right people — but if they stuck to those positions as the audiences changed, they’d be dead ducks. And they know it. Their selling point is that they’ll “bring together” the “deeply divided” electorate, by “reaching across the aisle” on the issues you don’t really care about. The issues you personally don’t care about. But when they talk to the other guys…the story will be that they’ll do this reaching across the aisle, by jettisoning some other positions about which you care, very deeply. They change their tunes with the whistle-stops. Everybody knows it, we just pretend it isn’t so.

The true believers are true believers. If you disagree with them, they’ll admit it. Some of them will admit it in an “aw shucks, I hope I can still count on your support” kind of way…or, maybe their true beliefs have to do with you being the Hated Enemy, and they’ll tell you to stick it. But the important thing is that they’re going to stick to their guns.

Let’s give credit where credit is due. John Edwards has always been a True Believer.

Yes, it’s provable he’s a liar. He’s a rich guy pledging to close up the wealth gap between the rich and the poor — and nobody is even pretending to believe, even for a split-second, that any of his plans have to do with diminishing his own income and/or personal net worth. But you can be a hypocrite and a true believer. John Edwards has always had a true believe in a two-tier society, in which rich people like him get to stay rich, and rich people who aren’t like him have to be made poor.

I don’t mean to say let’s give him some respect for this. You can decide that for yourself. I’m simply pointing out what John Edwards really is…and it isn’t all bad.

In the post of mine linked above, I said…

The True Believer is the kind we all say we want, the guy who doesn’t vacillate. Positions driven by principles. And I’m afraid that the presidential campaign season in the United States has become a rather unhealthy ritual of weeding these guys out.

I think at this point where just about finished with that preliminary process, aren’t we? Who’s left? So we’re down to the rock stars and the wafflers. And January isn’t even over yet.

So Edwards would have been a horrible President, and was a truly awful candidate — on top of which, he never really had a chance at all, did he? Yet, his departure is still more a cause for weeping and groaning than for celebrating and cheering.

Wonderful…just wonderful…a nine-month mud-wrestling match among empty suits and two-face turncoats.

[Discuss this article with MKFreeberg over at House of Eratosthenes...]

Sphere: Related Content

| Trackback URL | Comments (No Comments)

Update 9:06 CT, McCain has been projected as the winner with 75% of the vote counted. His campaign is now negotiating with the Giuliani camp for an endorsement. I see many of Giuliani votes going the McCain way and that spells trouble for Romney. He will have an uphill battle thanks to the Florida electorate.

The exit polls are starting to trickle in and it’s clear that McCain won on the shoulders of older voters and issues that are left of center of the Republican Party with the exception of Iraq. 48% of those who believe that abortion should always be legal and 44% of those who thought it should be mostly legal pulled the lever for John McCain.

Those with an overly negative opinion of President Bush also sided with the Senator from Arizona. 44% of the voters polled said they though John McCain was more qualified than Mitt Romney who came in at 26%.

McCain took over half of Florida’s Hispanic vote. I did the math, at 11% of the voting public that amounts to 196,043 voters. That translates to 103,904 votes at the time of this writing. The difference in the McCain vote total and Romney totals is only 89,056. One can only conclude that McCain’s pandering to this crowd paid off and may have in fact made up the difference in Florida. Again, McCain overwhelmingly won the vote of those who favor amnesty. A key factor? You decide.

Update 8:50 ET: It looks like Hillary Clinton is going to be the clear winner for the Democrats. Of course that’s what happens when you are the only person on the ballot that is campaigning in the state. It hasn’t been lost on Democrats that Hillary Clinton is trying to manipulate voters by pretending that she accomplished something in Florida, double crossing other candidates by showing up when they had all agreed to bypass the state that gives no delegates to the Dems. She is even planning a post primary close campaign stop and some sort of faux victory speech from what I hear. That is as close to Clinton politics as anyone can get with the appearance of accomplishing something premised on nothing.

The left is upset:

Hillary Clinton continues to defy the agreements not to campaign in Michigan and Florida after the two states broke party rules by moving up their primaries. Clinton left her name on the Michigan ballot after other candidates including Obama and Richardson had their names removed. She has been claiming a victory despite running unopposed, and has been seeking to have the delegates seated despite. Clinton has repeatedly been making public statements to court the Florida vote and will be appearing at a fund raiser in Florida tonight. Signs promoting Clinton such as the one above are appearing in the state.

It is possible Clinton isn’t breaking the letter of the agreement but she is certainly breaking the spirit of the agreement. Clinton fails to realize that character has become a major issue in this election. Americans are getting tired of political leaders who skirt the rules in such manners.

As with the dishonesty seen in many of her recent statements, this type of action raises the question of how she would behave if elected president. We have experienced a president who also takes liberties with the truth and pushes to increase presidential power at every opportunity. Hillary Clinton might sincerely she is acting to do good, but I fear that she will be unable to resist using, and even expanding upon, the increased powers available to the next president. We need a president who can be trusted to resist these temptations and play entirely within the rules. - Liberal Values

The Daily Kosers are equally as turned off if not more:

forget FL & MI for Dems,,, (7+ / 0-)

Recommended by:
mmacdDE, TLS66, donailin, Spunkmeyer, khereva, Thomas Twinnings, hollywood politcaljunkie

They and She broke the rules everybody agreed to ahead of time.
First of all, it is not a victory if nobody runs against you. This is not Putin’s Russia yet.
It is not a victory if you agree to the rules in writing, everybody else follow them and you do not.
It is not disenfranchisement if there are written rules, you agree to them in writing, and then you unilaterally decide to go against them.
Of course it is cheating, and it is not disenfranchisement. - Daily Kos

It’s nice to see that every move Hillary Clinton makes seems to be the wrong one even though the moves are completely in character. Welcome to reality.

Original Post Below:

---

The Republicans are a different story. McCain and Romney are running a super close race. No clear winner here.

There are some numbers coming out on the Florida Primary; Fox News has them:

On the Republican side:

McCain has a slight lead over Romney with Giuliani trailing way behind.

On the Democrat side:

Clinton has a substantial lead over Obama and Edwards.

Remember, these are early numbers and can change. It sure seems to be a real nail biter between McCain and Romney.

Additionally, Fox News just reported that Putnam county is reporting mechanical problems on their electronic voting booths. Great, just what we need, another Florida voting issue.

See Also: Captains Quarters, Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, Stop The ACLU

Giuliani, President Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Florida, Hillary Clinton    Sphere: Related Content

| Trackback URL | Comments (No Comments)

It looks like the surge had a positive impact; that is if the housing boom in Baghdad is any indication. Apparently people are returning to Baghdad because violence has gone done and Baghdad is now being viewed as a safe place to live.

The LA Times reports:

Soaring prices. Precious few homes. Bidding wars. Sound like Southern California a few years back? Welcome to an unexpected bright spot in global housing: Baghdad.

Attracted by news of decreased violence, thousands of displaced Iraqis returning to Baghdad’s safer neighborhoods are fueling a bit of a real estate frenzy.

Last year, home prices plummeted and rents dropped as Iraqis left town in search of more stability. But now, some say it’s almost impossible to find a suitable place to live, with sales prices doubling in certain neighborhoods and the most affordable homes being snatched up as soon as they’re on the market.

Sphere: Related Content

| Trackback URL | Comments (No Comments)